NeoBirth

I'm sitting outside feeling the moist sand underneath my bare feet and listening attentively to the distant call of the birds up in the mountains. The past few days have been filled with rain so the feel of the warm South African sunshine is much welcomed and was sorely missed.
We spent the day with Angela from the NeoBirth Care Center and even though it has been 7 days since we started working there, today I finally understood the scope of the work that they do. As a Christian organization (shown by the various biblical readings all around the office as well as the Christian messages that accompany their food parcels) NeoBirth works mainly to provide and instill basic life skills, HIV/AIDS Awareness, Pre-abortion counselling, support for abused and neglected children as well as foster-care and help with facilitating adoptions. In the previous days that we have been at NeoBirth we were mainly helping them organizationally but today we went back to both Freedom Park and Boitekong with Angela to deliver food parcels and sit in on a training session with the care-givers at both centers.

The previous days rain had turned the barren roads of Freedom Park into mud-filled tracks that we maneuvered through, arms filled with food donated by local churches to those families that needed them the most. We made our way through the neighbourhoods of corrugated iron shacks, among the multitudes of goats and pigs, to the first family. A mother with three children who did not receive any form of support from the government. She seemed a little awe-struck by these 6 strangers (accompanied by one of the care-workers) who suddenly came, seemingly out of nowhere, with food. It was the most eye opening experience of my time here because it is impossible to imagine how people can live in a 10 X 10 square corrugated iron shack, today I saw the inside for myself. Everything was neatly packed away and the inside spotless, It was easy to see that the family took pride in the little that they had.

On we went to another four families, giving each as much food as we could for the number of children in each family. One household was headed by a seventeen year old girl who took care of her three younger siblings while also holding a temporary job at the local convenience store. I've begun to appreciate what I have so much more now because of what I have seen and putting myself in the shoes of the grandmother who has 3 grandchildren to feed without government support or the teenager who has lost both of her parents and has younger siblings to take care of has opened my eyes to the luxuries I take for granted.

At Boitekong we sat in on a training session for the Child-care workers on the various social, and physical developmental mile stones that children normally reach at various year groups. I'll be writing my final report on the difference between HIV/AIDS preventative measures taken in South Africa and in Botswana and from the training session I realised that many of the initiatives taken to combat HIV in South Africa are run mainly by NGO's while the Botswana government plays a key role back at home with a lesser part taken by the NGO's. Tapologo, in partnership with NeoBirth works not only to address the issue of HIV but to combat social issues as well, such as education, poverty and basic social well being. The care-givers each visit with about 10 families (an average of 20 children) to find out how the children are doing in school, the problems faced by the family and how they can be helped. They address issues of teen pregnancy as well as transmission of HIV from a mother to her unborn fetus and look at preventative measures for both.

It is incredible to see how each woman took such pride in the families that she visited with and to hear of how appreciative the children are as well. The work that they do and the diligence with which they do it is unparalleled and Lily and I will be lucky enough to accompany them on one of their home visits this coming Tuesday. This is exactly what I came here for, this is what I've longed to do.